73% of transactional VOD releases take place in countries where the film has also been released in cinemas

A new report by the European Observatory explores the relation between theatrical and transactional VOD (TVOD) releases, pinpointing existing distribution trends and strategies. The report has been financed by the European Commission.

By identifying how many titles are available both on online TVOD platforms and in cinemas in the same EU countries, this publication investigates the level of geographical proximity between the theatrical release of a given film and its availability on TVOD services.

Drawing on data from LUMIERE, the European Audiovisual Observatory’s film admissions database, the analysis is based on films:

of EU origin;

released between 2011 and 2015 in the EU;

grossing at least 10 000 admissions across the EU markets;

with non-national admissions ≤ 20% of national admissions.

This data has been matched with data on the contents of film catalogues on TVOD platforms in the EU, collected via a dedicated web-scraping software tool. Even if the territories of theatrical and VOD distribution do not fully overlap, the analysis suggests that the exploitation in cinemas and the availability on VOD are interlinked.

Key findings:

Taking into account all cinema and VOD releases across all territories monitored, the report found that only 37% of all releases were made BOTH in cinemas and on VOD in the same country

73% of transactional VOD releases take place in countries where the film has also been released in cinemas

About 1 out of 7 TVOD releases takes place in a country where the film has not been released in cinemas.

When focusing on the number of films in our sample rather than on the number of releases, the data shows that:

When looking at territories, for 43% of the films, TVOD availability appears to be strictly linked to the release in theatres.

For 55% of the films in the sample, the countries of TVOD availability seem to overlap only in part with the territories of theatrical release.

For 2% of the films, there is no geographical link between the release in theatres and the release on TVOD.